Science Fiction Though the Decades

Friday, May 23, 2014

2012: Adrift on the Sea of Rains (Sales, Ian)

Glorifying the details where
salvation lies (4/5)

Ian Sales’ Apollo Quartet is an
unabashed glorification of the heydays of NASA infused with speculative science
fiction. The first story, a novella titled “Adrift
on the Sea of Rains” (2012), is heavily based on material researched from
NASA’s moon landing integrated with the lore of Nazi wonder-weapons or powerful
tools, generally called Wunderwaffe
(unrelated to Sales’ similarly titled shortstory [2012]).

Before approaching “Adrift on
the Sea of Rains”, the reader should possess or otherwise assume three attributes:
(1) glorify the science and personages of early NASA to the point of
idolization, (2) have a high toleration for acronyms (for which there is
an appendix), and (3) able to suspend belief for the enjoyment of a story.

The 53 pages of the EPUB file
contains 39 pages of story and 11 pages of appendices which feature a list of
abbreviations, a glossary, a bibliography, and a list of online resources. The
glossary is a mix of NASA historical fact mixed with speculation about an
alternative reality of NASA’s space program (beyond Apollo 17).

------------

Initially, NASA’s space mission
were an attempt to supersede Soviet prowess in the same field of study and to
gain the upper hand on the new battlefield miles above the Earth, but the
American people fell in love with the lore of astronauts and the glory of
victory. NASA continued the mission in the name of science, leaving Americans
disenfranchised with the glow of space victory. Science began to reign supreme,
legends became myth and the whole charade of space exploration became merely a
tool of science.

Colonel Vance Peterson, USAF,
is station on the moon. That base, Falcon Base, was established in 1984 with
modified modules destined for America’s space station named Freedom. The
original four members were later joined by a crew of eight. The central focus
of Falcon Base is The Bell, a relic of Nazi science left over from World War
II, which the Americans stole and have been experimenting with for years. The
primary scientist, Kendall, said that the only way to truly test The Bell’s
function was to put it in near-Vacuum. So, up The Bell went to the moon, to
Falcon Base with its 100-kilowatt nuclear reactor.

The atmosphere at the base,
once driven by routine and command, falls into uncertainty when the war
blankets Earth. The American bases carry no word to the moon and soon the Earth
is obliviously a dead planet. The men on the moon are the last humans alive, all
abandoned by their family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues and government.
However, their one hope rests on Kendall’s persistent meddling with The Bell, a
construction “nine feet in diameter and twelve feet high” which houses the
central experiment of a substance called “Xerum-525” (sounds exactly like this mythical Nazi
wonder-weapon).

Fortunately for the crew of
Falcon Base, The Bell offers hope. Though only Kendall may understand,
sometimes superficially at that, the device, the result of the Nazi gadget is a
jump through alternative worlds. Before each jump, Peterson is sent to the moon’s
surface to witness any visual change on Earth. After so many successive rounds
of jumping, the Earth, home, has remained a barren landscape scarred by the
tensions between the Americans and the Soviets.

Peterson has had his own
run-ins with the Soviets and has even had the rare pleasure of killing a
communist while flying. His hatred of the Soviets know no end while his ache
for his return to America holds aloft the hope he meekly instills in The Bell.
Though the others in the crew are not as disciplined as Peterson, he keeps
himself sane by running through his routine and hoping to find an Earth that is
close to the one that had seen die before their eyes…

…then one appears, a beautiful
blue marble. While “the men on Falcon Base can listen, but they cannot be heard”
(21-22), no one responds to their calls. One thing is noticeable though: there’
s one space station in orbit around the Earth. Memories of America’s station,
Freedom, offers them additional hope that rescue or acknowledgement of their
plight is possible. In order to secure that possibility of rescue, the
astronauts-cum-scientists brainstorm or ways on reaching either Earth or
Freedom. When the numbers are tabulated, trajectories plotted and fuel
concentrated, the likelihood of escaping from moon’s desolation looks good.

Peterson begins his ascent from
the moon and descent toward Earth.

------------

Obviously, this must be a pet
project of Sales. The amount of detail imparts an authenticity to the novella,
a deft touch of attention to detail that shows careful consideration. While
this detail doesn’t exactly make for light reading, it does add an element of
first-person perspective to the story—what’s important to the astronaut is
carried through the narrative, be it the physics of flight control or controlling
the waves of uncertainty.

With Peterson’s fixation of
hope comes the obverse niggling doubt; he doesn’t understand The Bell and finds
it difficult to place hope on a piece of Nazi construction and its borderline batty
scientist, Kendall. Regardless of all subjective observations, there is one
truth to Peterson: he is stuck on the moon, over three hundred thousand miles
away from a dead Earth. Among the subjective observations and objective truths
lay the emotional states of his past and present; he fosters distaste for
Commies while feeling nostalgia for being in cockpit of various jets (e.g., the
SR-91 and the F-108D). These mission characterize Peterson as a brash, gung-ho pilot
unfazed by danger or confrontation.

------------

Considering the series is a
thematic Quartet, I hope to see the remaining three stories follow a similar
feel: a foundation of hard details supporting a speculative wonder clouded by
an atmosphere of isolation and desperation. The remaining stories in the
Quartet are:

2 comments:

Just finished this novella - listening to it actually, on Starship Sofa - and have the same opinion as you. It's hard sf to the core, but Sales imbues enough human elements to keep the story from getting too technical. I'm very curious what he'll do with the wunderwaffe...

The quartet isn't connected, it's more thematic around alternative history of the Apollo program, so the wunderaffe isn't featured in any of the other three stories. I read but didn't review the third story because it was much weaker than the first two, sadly.